The Problems with the Answers

We now know our world, our planet (or those who are paying attention know) is one single, large, system. When we tweak the system, for better or for worse, there are systemic consequences. For centuries we have had examples of the systemic effects altering a single component of a system can have. If a person’s liver stops functioning: the person dies. The whole person, not just the liver. As human beings we are all sub-systems within, what we undeniably now know is, the larger, unified system which is the Earth. The danger we face is in continuing to think and behave as if each seemingly separate free-standing entity, whether a person, cow, tree, continent or ocean is an independent entity unaffected by the other seemingly free-standing entities around it.

As a video which used to be shown before movies in the U.S. said: “There is no non-peeing section of the pool”. Our environment is like a large pool, it’s all connected and there is no “non-peeing” section. What happens to the ocean off New Jersey affects Shanghai, and vice-versa. With some events proximity makes some difference; the closer a place, a people, are to the event, the greater the impact. Yet even small doses of a poison, continued over a long enough period of time, are going to affect the whole system.

Therein lies the problem with so many of the answers that industries and governments (and those controlling them) want to hand to the rest of us. So many, if not all, of the answers are lacking in adequate consideration of the systemic consequences of what is being proposed. Or, if the systemic consequences are being considered, there is a Machiavellian agenda afoot which gives little or no weight to the health and well-being of the majority of people on the planet. It is the cognizance of this latter possibility that underlies many, if not all, of the “conspiracy theories” we encounter.

The “mainstream” culture in the U.S., the government, industry, media, seem to want us to view the systemic reality that is our planetary ecosystem only one component at a time. We’re supposed to believe there is no critical interconnection between the components (seemingly independent entities). We are supposed to ignore the system as a whole. In actuality, each part, each component, of our planet is in constant energetic, chemical and/or physical interaction, communication if you will, with every other part. Just as our body is a whole system with each part in constant communication, via energetic, chemical and physical affects, with every other part. What happens if our planet’s “liver” fails?

This consequences of this interconnectedness has been referred to at times as the “butterfly effect”. That is an extreme, but not unfounded, conceptualization of the systemic reality we live within.

It’s time we not only face this reality but alter our thinking and behavior to properly take it into account. Air pollution in China affects us all. The radioactive water leaking from the Fukushima reactor in Japan is poisoning the whole ocean. The inordinate materialism being promoted in advertisements, movies and other media from the U.S. is affecting the collective psyche around the world. You see, it’s not just about air, water, or soil pollution, it’s about everything. Including the physicality, mentality and spirituality of all people, everywhere.

Some want to see our Earth as a being named “Gaia”. I have no problem with that. Whether our planet, our home is a sentient being or not really should make no difference in how we treat it (her). Our undeniable reality is that the Earth is our home, our only life-support system, and we need to give much, much greater respect and consideration to that reality than is being shown at this time.